


The Cost of Nostalgia

by syrenpan



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrenpan/pseuds/syrenpan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday gift for my dear friend, Tess. xx</p><p>Arthur's first love vanished from the BOS seven years ago, only to reappear in the Commonwealth as a Railroad agent. Despite being on opposite sides of the battlefield, can they work things out and live happily ever after? </p><p>Come and find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cost of Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tess1978](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tess1978/gifts).



> Fallout (c) Bethesda - No copyright infringement intended.

She did a classic double-take when the burly man in the fancy battlecoat entered the holding cells at Boston Airport. As if in trance, Clover Joy rose form the bench she was sitting on and walked closer to the bars, grabbing them until her knuckles turned white, pressing her heart-shaped face against the metal to get a better look.

“Well?” the man asked as he stood in front of her, his legs apart, hands clasped behind his back.

It couldn’t be him. Except he had the scar, and those blue, blue eyes.

Clover’s eyes darted to Paladin Danse who had taken up station next to the door, dressed in one of those fucking hideous BOS suits, arms crossed in front of his chest. He had the nerve to smirk at her.

 _Bastard_.

“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” the Elder asked.

His pitch. Rough and rumbling. Something twisted in her gut. The last time she had heard Arthur Maxson’s voice, it had squeaked.

Clover looked into his eyes and bit her lower lip. Hot damn. “It’s good to see you again, Art.”

“Watch your tone, prisoner,” Danse growled. At least he had stopped smirking.

Arthur smacked his lips and stepped closer to the bars. “And to think that I had forgotten how utterly irritating you can be. For the record, you will address me as Elder Maxson.”

“Still a whining little shit, I see.” Always pushing the envelope, but it got her what she was fishing for. Arthur banged his hands against the bars, forcing her to stagger backward. His face could have curdled milk.

Clover flashed her teeth. _Score_.

Arthur growled under his breath as she turned her back on him and sauntered to the bench. She flopped onto it, resting her back against the cold stone wall, letting her long legs dangle over the side. Her dust stained boots left dirt tracks on the floor.

“Well, not that this isn’t fun, and don’t get me wrong, I _am_ happy to see you, but why exactly did your lap dog abduct me?” Clover asked, indicating Danse with her chin. “I was on neutral territory, just having a drink with a friend when he came at me like a radstorm on a summer’s eve, growled, “ _Elder Maxson wants to see you,_ ” and dragged me out of the _Third Rail_. The only reason he wasn’t gutted like a mirelurk was me shouting that it was all a prank. As I see it, you owe me your life, Paladin.”

She fixed Danse with a stare which he returned in kind. His expression was utterly deadpan; she would hate to play poker against him.

The deep voice dragged her attention back to the tall stranger who claimed to be Arthur Maxson, except the person with that name she remembered was a boy who had just started puberty and blushed scarlet whenever she caught him staring at her tits.

“Would you have come if I had send an engraved invitation instead?” Arthur asked, cocking his head, a small smile playing around his lips.

Those lips… Yes, she remembered them, trembling against her own. His first kiss in the dark of his hideout in the Citadel. Clumsy, curious. He had been, what, fourteen? She had been seventeen, almost seven years ago. A precious memory, a guilty secret that she treasured. Maybe he did too? She knew he had cause to be mad at her for how she had left, but surely time healed all wounds, didn’t it?

Out loud she shrugged and replied, “Now we’ll never know.”

She watched the smile vanish to be replaced by an impassive mask that would give the Paladin a run for his caps. Her answer had obviously disappointed him. Clover opened her mouth to reply something more amiable but he cut her off before she had the chance.

“I had gotten word that you had been sighted in Goodneighbor. I sent Danse to confirm, and if possible, retrieve you.”

“Why? And please don’t tell that you’ve missed me,” she said mockingly.

“What if I did?”

The question caught her off guard and Clover knew that he knew it too. His face softened a little as he stepped closer to the bars. He smelled of steel and leather and something she couldn’t quite place but immediately liked.

All teenage boys smelled awful. It had something to do with the changes their bodies went through. Arthur had been no exception but Clover had ignored the stench in favor of being able to spent some alone time with Maxson, especially since he seemed to be so desperate for company. After all, he had earned it when he had saved her life from the Deathclaw that had come close to taking his own in the process.

Her Knight in shining armor.

She remembered that awkward feeling of relief and disappointment when it had turned out that her hero was merely thirteen and a Brotherhood Initiate to boot. Still, they had become something akin to friends who liked spending time together that was to say when they weren’t driving each other up the wall.

She had thought herself so much older, more mature. She could acknowledge now that she had been condescending to cover up for her own insecurity around him. He had been so serious, so focused and never stopped talking about how great the Brotherhood was. She had envied him that conviction, that certainty about his place in the world, something she hadn’t even come close to figuring out despite being three years older.

He had saved her life and in return she had spent time with him whenever he had come to find her in the quarters set aside for new scribes. Scribe Clover Joy – she had hated it from the start.

During her interrogation about the Deathclaw incident, the Proctors had figured out that she was a former vault dweller with a knack for pre-war tech, they had recruited, or more like drafted her into the ranks. She had thought about turning them down, but one look at newly promoted Knight Arthur Maxson’s face had made her clamp her mouth shut, grit her teeth and accept the offer.

Was this what this charade was all about? An offer? Was he going to make her another one after all this time?

He did. “How about dinner?”

Clover felt her jaw slacken. “What?” She and Danse asked at the same time.

Maxson grinned at her, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from Danse’s direction. She had thought he had looked dangerous when she had first laid eyes on this grown-up version, Arthur Mark 2 or whatever. But that smile, that sodding gorgeous smile made him look more like a cat ready to pounce: handsome and lethal.

Well, Clover Joy was no rodent, and as sure as hell not meek. _Challenge accepted, Elder!_

“I would love to,” she replied and resisted the urge to flutter her eye-lashes. Something told her that laying it on too thick would not work on Arthur.

“My quarters then, eight o’clock. I take it you would like to get cleaned up, and may I be so bold as to offer you some clean clothes?”

 _Smooth as fuck._ When had Arthur turned so suave? The young man she remembered stumbled through half his sentences when he wasn’t talking about honor and glory and killing anything that wasn’t human.

Just a few minutes ago she had been baiting him and now here she was half-panting and ready to put out for dinner and a chance to see what else might have changed about Arthur fucking Maxson.

“Elder, a word, please” Danse’s voice, barely audible through gritted teeth, brought her back to her senses. Nothing obvious betrayed him but Clover still detected that Arthur was annoyed about the interruption.

He had had her exactly where he had wanted her, and now the spell had been broken and given her time to rebuild her defenses. And she had to, too. She was, after all, Agent Fox of the Railroad.

Did he know? Of course he did. Clover could not afford to be naive. There was too much at stake for her, for her associates. It was no secret that the Brotherhood had come to the Commonwealth explicitly to take down the Institute because they regarded synths as a threat, not victims.

Could she use that to her advantage? Clover could practically hear Desdemona’s voice in her head, “ _Play your cards right, and your pursuer will turn into your prey. Get us the intel, agent. We are counting on you._ ” The Doc would tell her to get out and approach Maxson again when she was sure she would have the upper hand. And Deacon? He would just shrug and say something about getting a free meal at worst and a whole load of info for the greater good at best. “ _It’s a win/win, Fox.”_

Clover thanked her inner Deacon for the sound advice and decided to go for it, but, as Carrington would caution, on her terms.

“Elder Maxson?” She called and enjoyed the surprised look on both men’s faces when they turned to the sound of her voice.

Arthur gave Danse a last look before he approached her, hands clasped behind his back again.

“Yes?” He asked politely.

“As I said, I would love to have dinner,” she paused, looked him in the eyes and said, “with you.”

The muscles in his throat worked. _Score again._

“But not here,” she concluded.

“Very well,” Arthur said and pursed his lips before he asked, “where would you suggest?”

“Why, my place of course,” Clover replied.

“Out of the question!” Danse called but Arthur raised his hand, silencing the Paladin who gritted his teeth so hard, Clover could hear them grinding together all across the room. The tall soldier stood even more to attention if that was even possible. She tried to remember where she had seen him before, something about the way he moved, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

Instead, she focused her attention back on Arthur when he said, “I hope you don’t mean that room you are renting in that filthy ghoul infested hole known as Goodneighbor.”

Clover swallowed her first impulse to start arguing that ghouls were people but she knew she would not only waste her breath but also erode the progress she had made so far. She also suspected that he was baiting her into an argument and she simply didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“I have a, a house, you might call it. A former Red Rocket station north-east of here.” The look on Arthur’s face told her that he had not known about the place. Few people did and she always made damn sure she wasn’t tracked when she visited her little home away from home. But maybe it was time to move on.

Deacon often said it was dangerous to get too attached to, well, he mainly meant people, but things too. And he was right. It was a liability she could hardly afford. Clover was prepared to make that sacrifice if it would get her what she was after.

Arthur narrowed his eyes and worried his lower lip before he replied, “Agreed. Under one condition. Paladin Danse and his team will get to sweep the location for threats before we… have dinner.”

Clover’s heart clenched painfully in her chest at the thought of the Paladin’s paws all over her things but she nodded and agreed.

“I’ll cook,” she volunteered with a small smile.

A queer expression appeared on Arthur’s face that, for a second, made him look like the young man she remembered, despite the impressive beard. Something fluttered in her stomach when he asked, “Is your cooking still as good as ever?”

Clover smirked. Arthur was thinking about a charred Deathclaw haunch he had been forced to eat when they had to seek shelter in an abandoned shack after their first meeting. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Almost literally, because shortly after Clover had managed to stimpak and bandage Arthur as best she could with their meager provisions, a radstorm had hit and they had to leg it to the nearest hideout they could find. What a night that had been!

Hopefully, the next one would be less lethal and more pleasant for all concerned.

“Shush. I got better,” she laughed and was surprised when he chuckled too, which made her add on a whim, “it would go even better and faster if you helped me, or are you telling me the Elder of the Brotherhood can’t manage chopping veg and boiling water?”

Arthur flashed his teeth. “I look forward to it then. Shall we say six thirty tomorrow evening?”

“Fine,” Clover shrugged, “provided that is okay with you,” she shouted into Danse’s direction.

The Paladin gave her a stiff nod and said, “We’ll be done. And since you are being so cooperative, you will not mind accompanying us to your place. It will be, as you would put it, better and faster.” Danse was searching her face for a reaction as he approached, cell keys in hand.

“Why, yes. I could use some help carrying the groceries, how kind of you to offer,” Clover smiled sweetly and got another deadpan expression for her effort. The Paladin was much harder work than Arthur who was busy covering a chuckle with a cough as he stepped back to allow Danse to open the cell door. “We’ll leave in thirty minutes, civilian. With your permission, Elder.” And with a curd nod to his superior, the tall soldier left them alone.

Slowly, Clover Joy stepped out of her cell and looked at Arthur who seemed to have found something fascinating on the floor given the way he was staring at it. She stepped close enough until the tip of her boots were bound to be in his field of vision. She smelled that scent again that she liked but couldn’t identify. Maxson lifted his gaze.

His eyes were so blue, she feared she might drown in them. To save her sanity, she tried to focus on something else and noticed that the tip of his ears were bright red.

_Oh dear lord, he is nervous. Did I get this all wrong? Is this about..._

“I… uhm. I have matters to attend to on the Prydwen. Until tomorrow, Scribe Joy.” He muttered and turned to leave but stopped in his tracks when she said, “It’s Clover, Elder Maxson. Just Clover.”

He gazed over his shoulder. “Of course, forgive me. Slip of the tongue.” He walked toward the exit before he stopped one final time and said without turning, “It’s good to see you again.”

When the prison door fell shut, Clover whispered, “Yes, you too. Arthur.”

*~*

After a much needed bath, Clover put on her cleanest clothes which consisted of a sleeveless shirt in the same reddish brown color as her hair and blue jeans with holes in both knees. She braided her waist-long locks and used two safety pins to fix the plaits at the nape of her neck.

When she looked at her reflection in the mirror, checking for stray strands, Clover was struck by the realization that she was a sentimental soul at heart.

She had once thought of cutting her hair short but whenever she mentioned it, Tommy Whisper would make puppy dog eyes at her and she would relent. There wasn’t much joy in their lives and if looking at her hair made that poor soul happy, so be it. It seemed a small enough price to pay at the time. Now she couldn’t bring herself to cut it because it would feel like denying a dead man his last wish.

“You can’t afford that luxury in your line of work,” Clover told her reflection in her best imitation of Deacon. “If you get all sentimental about a teenage boy you kissed once before you ran away from the madness he not only worships but drives, you will get yourself and others killed.”

Clover broke eye-contact and sighed. She had thought her plan was cunning, perfect. She would play on his sentimental feelings for her, face the enemy on her own territory. But as soon as Paladin Danse and Knight Henderson had entered her home, she had felt it slipping from her control.

They had been respectful but thorough. Thankfully, Clover kept nothing that identified her as a Railroad agent in her home. Or so she had thought. When Danse had stepped outside to survey the surrounding area, Henderson had checked under her bed of all places and retrieved a holotape. It was old, the label had peeled off long ago, but Clover’s heart had jumped into her throat when she recognised it: the old Railroad recruitment tape. A silly memento really that she had thought lost long ago.

Sentimentality, again. But Henderson had not played it but simply handed it to her and focused on something else. Clover had taken the tape with a thank you and had dumped it into the nearest trunk before she had heavily sat down on it and had allowed herself to breathe again.

No, she could not afford to be sentimental any more.

When she had finished the thought, she could hear the rotor of the Vertibird that would bring her guest for the evening. It was showtime.

After what looked like a short exchange with Paladin Danse, Arthur Maxson strolled into the Red Rocket like he owned the place. To Clover’s surprise, the Vertibird took off again after Danse and Henderson had climbed on board. They had spent the night outside in a makeshift camp, officially, to make sure the area remained secure, which had made her feel like a prisoner in her own home. She was not sorry to see them go.

“I take it my soldiers didn’t cause you too much trouble?” Arthur asked with his hands behind his back in that confident gesture she had come to associate with him.

Clover forced herself to smile and replied, “Not at all, Elder. Can I get you a drink? You can hang your coat up by the door.” She didn’t wait for a formal reply and headed toward a small table where she filled two glasses with bourbon.

When she turned toward her guest again, she almost dropped the drinks. Arthur had followed her suggestion and divested himself of his coat. Instead of the standard BOS suit, he wore a simple dark green t-shirt and ACU pants. No-one had the right to look this handsome in simple combat gear.

Her surprise must have registered on her face, maybe because she had frozen on the spot and stared at him bug-eyed. Smirking, Maxson sauntered closer and carefully took one of the glasses out of her unresisting hands. She had to tilt her neck to maintain eye contact. When had that happened?

He clinked his glass against hers and said, “It’s Arthur when we are here. To old friends,” and downed half the content in one gulp.

Clover raised her own glass and resisted the urge to drink it all. She had to try and keep her head in the game, but damn it, this was going to be a lot harder than she had hoped.

In an attempt to gather her thoughts, Clover suggested they should start preparing dinner. Arthur smiled and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

_How about you show me whether your kisses have gotten any better?_

Clover mentally slapped herself, coughed and said, “You can chop the tatos for the salad.” Arthur nodded and followed her instructions, apparently, the leader of the Brotherhood had no problems being bossed around in the kitchen.

They worked together in an oddly domestic fashion like an old couple who had done it all their life, and Clover felt herself relax by increments. It got harder and harder to remember that for all intense and purpose, the enemy was stirring the stew while telling her outrages stories about his adventures on field duty as she set the table.

When dinner was ready, they sat down and ate in companionable silence while working their way through the bottle of bourbon. Arthur smiled a lot, something she had never seen him do when he was younger. It was a good look on him. When she told him so, he stopped and held her gaze for a long moment before the smile slipped from his face. He reached for her hand across the table and almost hesitantly laced their fingers together.

“Why did you leave?”

So far, they had avoided any more volatile topics but it seemed time was up. The question sent a shock of adrenaline through her system that almost killed the pleasant buzz from the bourbon. Her skin tingled where they were touching. She wanted nothing more than to pull her hand away in an attempt to escape him but he had her cornered and she had run out of ground.

Clover closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “Arthur...”

She felt his finger tighten ever so slightly but not so much that she couldn’t take hers back if she really wanted to. A part of her wanted to tell him that she owed him nothing. That she had repaid her debt to him by dragging his wounded ass back to the Citadel after he had saved her life. That she had never wanted to be a member of the Brotherhood of Steel in the first place.

But it would be a white lie, the kind a coward would use in order not to face an inconvenient truth. She had known full well that Arthur had feelings for her and she had done nothing to discourage his clumsy, immature overtures.

On the contrary, she had taught him how to kiss, had taken his shaking hands and put them on her breasts over her shirt. She had climbed into has lap and had told him it was okay when he had embarrassed himself. They had cuddled together in his den until she had to get up for duty and a week later she had left without so much as a good-bye.

“During my last field duty, my patrol ran into a group of raiders,” Clover began, still keeping her eyes closed. “We dispatched them easily enough until we had the leader cornered. It turned out she was an old friend of mine. Verity, the first person I had run into after I had escaped the vault. My CO wanted to kill her but I pleaded for her life, for old times sake.”

An involuntary chuckle escaped Clover. Yes, sentimentality really would be her undoing one day.

She opened her eyes and looked across the table at Arthur. Something hot pooled in her gut. Repressed feelings of guilt and something else she wasn’t ready to acknowledge made her feel ill.

She did pull her hand back then, and he let her. “Can we… let’s sit on the couch,” she suggested and got up. Arthur did the same and went to sit on the red, threadbare sofa.

Clover made to join him then stopped and looked at the front door. “Are any of your men still close by?”

“No,” Arthur replied.

“I’m going to activate the defenses.” When Arthur nodded, Clover stuck her head one last time out of the door before she pulled it shut and flipped the switch that would activate the traps and turrets. After one last check to make sure all exists were secure, she walked back into the main room and closed the door behind her.

It suddenly struck her that Arthur would have to spend the night. Her eyes automatically darted to her bed which was big enough for two and felt a crimson blush spread from her neck upwards.

Maxson must have followed her gaze because he said, “I can summon a Vertibird at any time.”

Clover looked at him torn between embarrassment and anger at her own naivety. She could only imagine that Arthur thought her a complete fool at this point. Her only consolation was that if he really knew about her association with the Railroad and he thought of her as a representative example of their expertise, he might dismiss them as a threat altogether and leave them be. _‘Well that might count as a success,’_ she thought wryly.

“You were telling me why you left,” Arthur didn’t say “me” but he might as well have. Clover swallowed hard in an effort to force down the lump that suddenly seemed to constrict her throat. She blamed it on the booze. It made her feel so damn emotional tonight and started to look for a can of purified water.

“Do you want one?” She asked when she had found a few on a shelf and almost giggled when Arthur wrinkled his nose. Clover took a deep breath, opened the can and drank a few sips before she joined Maxson on the couch.

They sat on opposite ends and she was grateful for the space. She clamped her knees together, back rigid and held the can in both hands in her lap when she continued her story.

“Where was I?”

“Verity,” Arthur prompted.

“Right. I convinced my CO to let her go. We walked a few steps together away from where we made camp. She looked at me and then asked me why I was with the Brotherhood. I told her…”

Clover stopped herself. She had told Verity that she had met someone and that she owed him her life. The older woman had smirked at her and teased her about being in love with a knight in shining armor which Clover had vehemently denied. She would rather eat the can in her hands than admit that to Arthur, though.

Instead, she said, “I told her that I had joined because of a friend.” Arthur’s eyes lit up for a second and Clover’s stomach did a somersault. She quickly took another sip before she said. “And she told me that she wasn’t a raider but part of a group of people who were working for the greater good without trampling on everyone and everything that wasn’t a member of their exclusive club.” She emphasized the last worst to turn them into an accusation.

To his credit, Arthur didn’t even squirm but he said, “I’m not going to apologize for the ideals I believe in, Clover.”

“And I don’t expect you to,” she replied, “but I need you to understand that I don’t share your worldview.”

“I know that already,” Maxson said calmly.

“Yes, I suppose you do,” Clover admitted.

“So, you are saying Verity recruited you into the Railroad and that’s why you left the Brotherhood, is that it?”

Clover forgot how to breathe, can suspended in mid-motion on the way to her mouth. She could just sit and stare at Arthur who sat on her couch as calm as if they were chatting about the weather.

“Yes, I know who you are, Agent Fox,” Maxson continued.

The can made a loud thumbing sound when she banged it onto the low couch table, sloshing bits of precious water, but Clover was too upset to notice. She had suspected of course but to hear him say it straight to her face threw her for a loop.

“Why all this then?” She asked angrily. “Why drag me to prison, only to release me for dinner?”

“Why did you accept my invitation, Clover?”

“Because…,” she stopped.

_Because I wanted to pump you for information. Because I was curious. Because, against my better judgement, I felt so happy see you. Because I can’t believe how hot you are, damn it, which makes me sound kind of shallow, but I don’t care._

Arthur sighed and raked his hands through his hair and over his face. “Fuck, I should have told you form the start.”

“What? Why?” Clover’s head was spinning.

“Because then we could have just relaxed instead of…,” he gestured wildly through the air, lost for words it seemed, “I don’t know, Clover. Look, I know you’re with the Railroad but I didn’t know whether this was why you had left. I wanted, no, I _needed_ answers.”

She stared at him, unsure what to say. Her grand plan of subterfuge and interrogation had just been trashed but where did that leave her?

“I didn’t run away because of them,” she heard herself say. Arthur’s head whipped around, the question plain as day on his face.

Clover bit her lip, half-choking on the words she didn’t want to say out loud. “They just gave me a purpose, an excuse. Verity needed help with a synth relocation and we needed to move fast. There was no time for good-byes and I was… I was too much of a coward to tell you to your face.”

“Why?” Arthur asked. Until this moment, Clover had no idea that one could convey so much pain in one single word.

“Because I was falling in love with you.”

Arthur pressed his mouth against his steepled fingers, trying in vain to stifle a whining sound like a hurt mongrel.

Clover felt her eyes sting. Fuck, she hadn’t known that she had hurt him so badly. “You see the world in black and white. Brotherhood on one side and everything else on the other, but I don’t. My world and your world, they simply can’t function together and it was killing me. But I was prepared to ignore it, to give it all up, for you. When the Railroad came into the picture, it was like my last chance to escape. I was… I was trying to protect myself before I got lost in you.”

Arthur had buried his face in his hands. She couldn’t see his eyes but his shoulders were shaking.

_That’s why you agreed to come here. Why you sent your men away. You are not the Elder here, not now, not with me. You are the boy whose heart I broke seven years ago and you didn’t know why. You thought I hated you when nothing could be further from the truth._

Clover’s heart ached. She scooted closer and laid her hands on his upper arm.

“Uhm...” Arthur had turned, burying his face in her neck and pulling her close against his broad chest. His beard was tickling her and her back protested but she ignored both and hugged him back, slowly stroking her hand through his hair, soothing, apologizing.

“Do you want to stay? To sleep, not to...” She asked and he nodded into her shoulder.

They eventually settled on her bed together. Clover under the cover in her knickers and a t-shirt, Arthur on top, still fully closed except for his belt, boots, socks and weapons that he had put on the bedside table within easy reach.

Arthur lay on his back, hands folded over his sternum until Clover turned and nudged him until he lifted his arm so she could put her head on his chest. She thought she would never be able to rest tonight. Her head was spinning and she felt raw and still guilty for having caused him so much pain. But the wonderful scent that she by now associated with Arthur and the rhythm of his heartbeat eventually lulled her into sleep.

*~*

Clover woke an hour before sunrise. She felt warm and comfortable, a solid source of heat spooned around her back, a well-defined arm draped over her waist. They must have turned in the night, settling into this position. Arthur was breathing against her neck still sound asleep.

Carefully, Clover rolled over until her nose almost touched his. She could make out his features in the dim light of the lamp she kept burning through the night at the other end of the room.

Unable to resist, she wormed her hand out from under the sheets and stroked his beard. It was surprisingly soft. Clover smiled as her fingers traced over the lines on his forehead, now almost invisible when his face was relaxed. So young and already he looked like he had to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. She sighed.

Her fingertips trailed over the scar, down his neck and followed the sharp outline of his collar bone. Such a difference from the teenager she had loved all those years ago as if the boy had grown into the larger than life man his mind had always pictured him to be. A man full of confidence and conviction that what he did was for the best of human kind.

They were alike in that way. They both believed in what they did, it had only taken Clover much longer to find her calling when his had been handed to him form birth.

But where did that leave them? There was no future where they could be together. They both knew that all too well. All they had were memories of shared adventures, of first kisses in the dark, and this.

Clover looked up from his chest to find that Arthur was watching her. His eyes looked black in the dim light, black and dark and wanting. One moment, maybe they could snatch it from their ill-timed fate. Maybe they could have this, could forge one more memory to treasure while they would have to move on down the paths they had chosen for themselves.

They moved at the same time. Their lips met, hesitantly at first, reminiscent of their first time but it lasted only for a second before Arthur moved. His hands cradled the back of her head as he rolled her on top of him. Clover opened her mouth, his tongue slipped inside, stroking her own, confidently, experienced. He devoured her like a starving man, swallowing her moans with his lips.

She briefly wondered how many others had been privilege to this but the thought scattered when Arthur moved once more, this time rolling on top of her. He abruptly sat up, stripping off his t-shirt, making his holotags jingle.

Clover struggled with the cover that had wrapped itself around her like a net, a predicament that Maxson got rid off promptly. He climbed out of bed and ripped the blanket away before he looked down at her with so much hunger. Clover felt heat coil in her stomach. It churned and writhed before it spread down, down, down to where she wanted him to be.

They hadn’t done more than kiss and already she was soaking wet and aching for him.

“Take them off,” she said and gestured to his slacks. Maxson obeyed without breaking eye-contact, dropping his briefs as well. His cock sprang free, Clover could see a bead of pre-cum at the tip.

She sat up, ripping her t-shirt off before she flopped back on the bed, lifted her hips and shimmied out of her knickers. Arthur watched with his mouth open.

“Come to bed,” she said, surprised how rough her voice sounded.

He obeyed her again, climbing on top of her. His skin burned against her own wherever they touched. She spread her legs for him and they moaned when his cock brushed against her. He supported himself on his lower arms to keep from crushing her while his hips seemed to have a mind of their own as he started to move against her.

She met his every thrust, grinding herself against him. They were both panting, already too far gone for foreplay.

“Fuck me, Arthur.”

“Gods...”

“Please, fuck me.”

Maxson groaned and reached for his cock. He positioned himself and sank into her as slowly as he could. He was trembling, trying to give her time but she didn’t want slow. Clover wrapped her legs around the back of his thighs and pulled him closer.

“Ahhh...”

When he bottomed out, Clover squirmed but he pleaded with her to stop.

“I… I want this to last,” he panted into her neck.

“Then we will do it again, damn it. Fuck me, Arthur. I’m close.”

He groaned and gave in, abandoning all restrained, he started to move. Clover threw her head back, trying to match his rhythm. Maxson wormed his hands under her ass, shifting the angle of his thrusts before he suddenly pulled back, forcing her to go along until she was sitting in his lap, her legs resting on the bed, giving her more leverage. But he still held her ass, controlling the speed, helping her fuck herself on his cock, bringing her close but not enough to make her come.

She had thrown her arms around his shoulders and looked down into his face. Fuck, he looked so open and raw. This man, who had a whole army at his command, was worshipping her with his eyes, his lips, his cock.

She was so close now, so close. Clover blindly fumbled for one of his hands; he allowed it, giving her more room to move. She took his fingers, guiding them to her clit, teaching him to circle it like she liked it. Heat spread from the base of her spine, the wave hitting her by surprise. She screamed his name as she came, her pussy tightening around his cock, pulling him over the edge as well.

They fell back on the bed, legs tangled. Arthur rolled over and kissed her softly.

“Clover, I...”

“No, don’t,” she quickly pressed her lips to his. He made a sound against her lips. She pulled back and stroked his hair when she said. “It’s almost dawn.”

“What happens at dawn?”

Clover swallowed and pressed her forehead to his. “We will have to move on.”

She could feel the muscles working in Arthur’s jaw. He kissed her again before he said, “But it’s not dawn yet.”

Clover smiled. “No, not yet,’ she agreed and pulled him on top of her.

Soon they would have to part ways, and this too would become a memory, a treasure tucked away like a lost dream. Clover knew her sentimentality would get her killed one day. Who knew, she might face the man in her arms on the battlefield, but not now.

For now, they had a moment, and she would make it last for as long as she could.

The End


End file.
